


Paradise Found

by Coraleeveritas



Series: From Winter To Spring [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas Fluff, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 18:05:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2821349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coraleeveritas/pseuds/Coraleeveritas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaime and Brienne take a long awaited vacation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paradise Found

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RoseHeart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseHeart/gifts).



> This is the first of a planned series of ficlets, which will hopefully cover a variety of pairings, but I wanted to start with JB as I know and love them the most.
> 
> I don't have the words to explain how much RoseHeart's constant friendship and support means to me. She has been there for me through all of my ups and downs over the past year and always has time for me despite her busy schedule and knows exactly what to say. It's just a small gesture, but this one is for her. Thank you for everything, my friend.
> 
> I also must say a huge THANK YOU to Sandwichesyumyum for being so awesome and supportive. Her much too kind comments never fail to bring a smile to my face!
> 
> None of this belongs to me, I'm just borrowing the characters and places from GRRM in the hopes of giving them happier endings than are planned! :)

Jaime couldn't quite remember how he'd persuaded his wonderfully stubborn travelling companion into thinking a bikini could be appropriate beachwear, not when the initial suggestion had made her blush run through a spectrum so vibrantly red he wouldn't ever believe another shade of vermillion could exist. Yet watching the last rays of the evening sun sensuously stretching just to kiss the cornucopia of freckles sprinkled across her bared stomach and shoulders as she strode towards him across the warm sand, he wasn't looking for reasons to complain. In fact, ever since he'd casually mentioned getting away from their respective responsibilities the morning before last, minutes after she had grown frustrated enough to end their argumentatively circling snowball fight by kissing him so hard he didn't have enough breath left to think, his fingers and toes and the tip of his nose tingling from the cold, all Jaime had wanted was to spend the holidays wrapped up in the arms of the woman he loved without being reminded of his family's obsessive need for procreation.

Three times he'd taken Brienne to Casterly for Christmas since their forced working partnership had begun half a decade earlier, eventually leading to them sticking two fingers up at rules that advised against fraternisation after the rookie lost her father mere weeks before the holiday season began in earnest. Jaime still wasn't entirely sure why he'd invited her home that first time, his father having called in unneeded favours so that he could return home for a couple of days, but Brienne had specifically not requested any time off. They were only considering the idea of friendship at that stage, although their trust and respect for each other was growing day by day, but he had sealed her nod of agreement with the promise that if they were both going to be miserable, since the Commissioner had forced Brienne into taking a break, they might as well be miserable together.

“ _Brienne_ ,” he called to her now as he had done then, feeling her gaze skitter over his skin before it trembled and fell into his hungry eyes, the spark that had allowed understanding to keep battling against unspoken underlying tension failing to fade even though they’d long become something more than just colleagues. His brother had called it kismet, though Jaime had taken a more pragmatic viewpoint for once in his life. The seven of legend had no part to play when it was just him and Brienne alone with the truths and lies hiding elsewhere in rumours circling like vultures around their names. She’d been the only one to accept _everything_ he was and wasn’t, what Brienne hadn’t guessed about a fifteen year near incestuous affair taking a backseat one fateful night to the reasons why he’d taken down his former captain for a greater good nobody but they would ever know. And, in time, he had listened to every single one of her painfully heartfelt stories, silently seething at how the world had treated the most honourable person who’d ever had his back. “You took your sweet time getting out here. Did I really tire you out already? I thought you had stamina, woman.”

“Shut up,” she mouthed, the low lying sun bathing her frame in the flames of wanton embarrassment, flickers of dying light granting her an unusual level of grace.

“Come over here and make me.”

Twice before they had walked into the lion’s den as acclimatising adversarial allies, his father's eyebrows disappearing into his hairline as they bickered like children over the potatoes at dinner and terrorised the hallways of the south wing well into the evening, finding that mutually recurring nightmares of unsolved cases opened both figurative and physical doors that would have normally stayed locked to the other. And by the time they voluntarily ventured into the patriarchal arena for a third year in a row, after finally discovering how much fun getting caught under suspiciously strewn sprigs of mistletoe could be at his brother's champagne soaked post-Thanksgiving, pre-Christmas party, Jaime found it hard not to drag her into the nearest empty room every time she blushed as his hand accidentally on purpose brushed against her fingers or knees or thighs under the overloaded table. 

He woke that third Christmas morning in Brienne's borrowed bed, feeling warm and safe and wanted, her fingers threading absently through his hair as he nuzzled and cajoled her into lifting her chin from his shoulder so that he could claim her lips again. Skin had called to skin soon after, but he’d barely been given a chance to join up the freckles that ran down the arch of her neck and across her left breast with his tongue, her hands embarking on their own voyage of diffident discovery all over his back and arse, before the smell of breakfast had floated up from the staffed kitchens, rousing both young and old and cooling their intense intimacy.

“Next year,” he had promised between softly pressed kisses that could only graze the surface of what they’d both been happily building towards. “Next year, you can have me all to yourself.”

“And what makes you think I’d enjoy that when your family have been _so_ warm and welcoming?” Brienne blinked down at him solemnly, wriggling away just far enough so that her mussed hair, wide eyes and blown pupils were all he focus on as she lay stretched out beneath him. “I mean, next year we wouldn’t have to get out of bed until noon if we didn’t want to, could order Chinese food for lunch and not have to speak to another person but each other for a whole day. There’d be no disapproving stares, no ‘sisterly’ advice and no talk of when would be best for me to give up my career so you can impregnate me. Why would I want to miss out on all of that again?”

She smiled, her unintended attempts at coyness in direct odds to how thoroughly ravished she already looked. It had, he considered as the recklessness of lust tried to obscure his ability to think clearly, become almost too easy to want to spend more time with Brienne, relishing the moments they had stolen in each other’s company as the closest of friends, and, now, as enthusiastic bedfellows. If his brother was right and he hadn’t shared a similar streak of blind obliviousness with the girl with the astonishing blue eyes, as Tyrion had informed him time and time again since he’d been introduced to Brienne, Jaime wondered if he could have been learning how to make her smile and sigh as they'd fallen. Instead, they'd been hand in hand but a thousand miles apart for so long and he had been hit with the depth of his feelings all at once, after their first kiss turned into a dozen, longing touches.

“Darling,” he’d purred in reply, pushing the proof of his own desire firmly against her partially covered thigh and nipping at the pattern of freckles drawing his fevered attention from behind her ear. “You’ve never been able to hide that well from me. You’re practically panting for more. And didn’t we both agree now wasn’t the time or the place for such things? Next year….”

“But…but you started it,” she stammered into a hissed accusation, unlocking her arms from around his shoulders and pushing her palms against his chest though Jaime ignored the hint for him to move. “I don’t remember asking for a wakeup call involving your tongue.”

“ _You_ never would. But that doesn’t mean you can’t like it,” Jaime dipped down to run the tip of his tongue along the shining line of scar tissue decorating her cheekbone, a memory of the day a loose bullet made him think he might lose her steady friendship. The thought was quickly banished though as the hitch in her breathing made him, once again, forget the promises he’d made during their car ride over. Not being able to control his returning smile as he slid a teasing finger between her legs, he had waited until Brienne instinctively caught her bottom lip between her teeth before continuing. “I was going to ask if you were wet, but that seems a little redundant right now.”

“Jaime!”

“Why don’t you wait until we get back to my place tomorrow afternoon before you start screaming my name?”

Brienne had shaken her head in exasperation, almost losing her words as breathlessness followed his insistent stroking, but a whisper escaped her parted lips nevertheless. “What am I going to do with you?”

“You could marry me.”

There had been what seemed like the longest pause in Jaime’s life, his heart racing to fill in the silence as Brienne weighed up the emotional truth in the jokingly delivered offer, her eyes growing in the morning light as shock registered in the blue depths. It had taken years to reach a point where an implicit trust existed between them, but with the crushing weight of her insecurities starting to sneak back in, he wondered if he’d made a mistake by running before they’d worked out how to walk together. Though in every moment where she let him in, body, heart and soul, he’d known that they were meant to last, already making plans to spend the rest of his life with the amazing Amazon who was slowly forsaking her own bed in favour of one that was theirs.

“We can’t work together anymore if we…”

“You’re going to waltz through your promotion interview next month, so we wouldn’t be together for much longer anymore. But, I don’t care. I’m not asking because of that, I’m asking because I want you in my life all the time, not just in twelve hour shifts.”

“Jaime.”

“Forget it,” he’d muttered, pushing back the bedclothes and letting the cold air in just as the first sounds of happiness could be heard from several floors below, his niece and nephew forgetting to pretend that they were too old for Christmas. “It’s too soon. I shouldn’t have…”

“No,” Brienne interrupted, scrambling out of the bed to catch him before the bathroom door could be opened, her homely face flustered and adorable. “Yes. I mean, I will. I do. I want that too.”

And, eight and half months later, with the help of his brother, his romantically minded teenage niece and her cousin, the girls in complete adoration of Brienne in her smart cream suit, they’d exchanged rings and vows in front of a judge, rushing back home for an afternoon of orgasmic bliss before returning to work like nothing had changed. Tyrion thought they were both mad to purposely choose not to take advantage of the best part of their newlywed status, his own marriage passionate though tempestuously short lived, making a point to leave travel magazines and hotel recommendations in plain sight whenever the pair came to visit. 

Jaime, on the other hand, hadn’t given much thought to a honeymoon. He was happy simply going home and waking up and _connecting_ with Brienne every day in their home, signing the deeds to a place they could either grow into or grow old in on the day her captaincy had been made official. Two of Commissioner Stark’s latest litter of puppies had been added to their family in the weeks following, mostly against his better judgement, but Brienne’s big heart and sensibilities eventually won him over. Especially as Bear and Blue ended up more often than not patrolling the corridors and napping under her desk at the precinct. And although there had been too much death and betrayal in their lives for either of them to believe in perfection anymore, curled up with Brienne at the end of a long day, two bulky balls of fluff snuffling from baskets in the corner of their front room, he was tempted to think that maybe he’d found the next best thing.

Then, as autumn rapidly turned into winter and the snow began to fall, he found the brochure for the Quiet Isle.

“I take it you haven’t been doing much else but lying out here waiting for me to join you?” Brienne called out, the warmth in her tone pulling him out of the icy grasp of their recent past. “And you want to talk to me about stamina?”

“I do,” he grinned. “Because I’m pretty sure there were _multiple_ reasons why you might still prefer to be in bed right now.”

“Cocky bastard.”

“Yes, and with good reason.” His smile widened as she huffed out a sigh, hearing more than a hint of affection in her irritated affectation. All the time they had spent in on the streets or in a squad car had taught them to accept and make use of the other’s strengths and weaknesses, but years together still hadn’t loosened Jaime’s reliance on a sharp tongue or Brienne’s ability to stand her ground like a stubborn mule. “Although, Captain, you should know that bad mouthing the family name is practically a cardinal sin.”

She sighed again, his name tightly wrapped around the heavy exhale, beginning to stretch her impossibly long legs as she moved to cast him in her shadow. There were still times when a wall of silent stalemate existed between them, higher and wider than the one of the legend which had been a military base for as long as history could recall, apologies only falling past their lips when neither could bear the tension any longer. Soft words followed softer touches, Brienne learning to pick her battles as Jaime found the gaps in her armoured defences where love had blossomed and bloomed. “I think, Jaime, _our_ family should start making its own traditions.” The shifting air indicated that Brienne had at least crossed her arms, self-consciousness raising its all too familiar head although they were the only people for miles after he’d sent Tyrion’s army of chefs and maids scurrying back to the island’s hotel. But even in the dying embers of the winter sun Jaime would be able to know when her lower lip was being worried at, her eyes dropping to inspect the sand, her forehead creasing without needing to really _see_ any of it all. “Starting with forgetting that we’re Captain Tarth and Detective Lannister until we step back on Westerosi soil.”

“Done", he agreed. "Though if I didn’t know better, I’d think that was Brienne for ‘shut up and kiss me’.”

She barked out a hoarsely good natured laugh, the last flickers of fatigue languidly falling from her sun kissed lips to colour the sand in shades of fledgling sensuality. “I think it took you all of fifteen minutes to realise that I’m never going to be that subtle. Remember the night we were called to a disturbance at The Seven Stars?”

“As if I could forget. Watching you take down those guys after they’d laughed and decided to try their luck with the giant girl, well, you were the best fucking thing I’d seen in a long time.”

“Jaime,” she mumbled and he could imagine how hot her cheeks must be burning under the glare of his compliment, Brienne turning her head into the sunset as if only nature itself could stop the spread of her blush. “We didn’t really know each other back then, I don’t need you to…”

“No,” he interrupted, pushing himself up off the more than comfortable recliner to reach for his wife as she sidestepped away from the unexpected dissent. “I don’t think you do. That bikini is telling me exactly how good you’re feeling today.”

“The girl in the shop said it would suit an athletic build,” she replied casually, keeping Jaime firmly in her eye line as she stopped herself from hugging her torso tighter by beginning to toy with the pretty and practical navy blue halter tie. “And the weather forecast for the island this week wasn’t anything but clear skies and high temperatures so my normal swimsuits didn’t seem appropriate.”

“Like I would bring you to the honeymoon isle when it was cold and miss out on seeing you this relaxed and sexy in public,” he scoffed gently, inching closer to her unneeded justifications and sinking deeper into the white gold sand with an obvious lack of nuance. Brienne shot him a look of fond apprehension as she dropped her arms and welcomed the intensity of his stare flaming over her freckles, warning him against pushing the point too hard, though he wasn’t about to let this one go until she’d admitted the truth in what he had whispered and moaned and purred more times than could be counted. “Is it the sun, the sex, the _me_ or a little of all three that has you feeling so good?”

“Honeymoon Isle?” she countered, sighing contentedly as he made the move to pull her against his chest, Jaime releasing a similar breath while settling into the strength and comfort that always accompanied her hugs. Though he’d rarely admit it, some nights Jaime didn’t want anything but for her to hold him, muscle and sinew and the merest hint of softness soothing his bruised body and quietening his tired mind. And she was always so warm, so generous, so godsdamn pig-headed that some nights he wasn’t able to vocalise the emotions that kept them entwined together, the sheer belonging overwhelming everything he thought he’d known about falling in love.

“You may not have noticed but it hasn’t exactly been _quiet_ around here.”

“Oh, gods, do you really want to discuss this?” Brienne turned her head slowly, Jaime catching the scent of coconut and salt in her hair, her morning swim feeling like half a lifetime ago. “I haven’t been insisting on talking everything time things get…”

“How else would you know that I love having your mouth around me? And you’re conveniently forgetting to mention that you’re turning into a screamer.”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

“As you wish.”

She hummed appreciatively as he pressed his lips to hers, the kiss staying soft and tender like it was more important to touch than it was to explore territories that had already been conquered. Jaime pulled infinitesimally back to look up at her through his eyelashes, revelling in Brienne’s smile and the fingers in his hair, recently formed habits making him enjoy the feeling of being petted without any expectation of escalation.

“I feel comfortable here, with you,” she admitted, the words almost disappearing under her breath as she met the second of his gentle kisses. “We’re not watching what we say or being forced to pretend that we don’t occasionally fight or that we didn’t have to go to IKEA that one Sunday morning because we’d broken the bed the night before.” He laughed at the memory but she quickly shushed him, tugging on his hair just hard enough that he had to swallow a moan before it spoilt the moment. “I feel….”

“Good,” Jaime filled in, running his hands up and down her back in maddeningly slow circles, seeking out the spot that never failed to weaken her knees, retaliating the only way he knew how. “It’s nice that you’re finally beginning to listen to what I’m trying to tell you. You feel _amazing_ , love."

She blushed harder, the sensational sunset behind them forgotten as the one dancing up her neck and licking at her cheeks became all he could see. “Maybe.” 

It was enough for now, he thought, pacifying her with a touch of his lips behind her ear, another sensitivity that could make her melt in the right time and place. “Now that that’s finally out in the open, why don’t you come and lay back down with me? There are people on the other side of the island who would kill for this view.” He raised an eyebrow, waiting until Brienne laughed away his over exaggerated leer before slipping his hand into hers, following his lead like he would always follow hers. 

“Has anyone told you that you’re a hopeless romantic?” she asked, folding her legs under her as she sat on the lone recliner, frowning as she tried, and failed, to make room for him to join her. 

“Only you and only all the time,” Jaime replied without missing a beat, not caring that he had to curl himself into her side, the solid plane of her shoulder and slight cushion of her breast providing him with the best kind of pillow to watch the waking stars reflecting in her shining eyes. “So it’s a good thing you’re exactly the same.” 

Ignoring his attempts at getting her to react, Brienne rested her head on top of his, her easy exhales catching at the finer strands of silver and gold at his temples. “Merry Christmas, Jaime." 

There was nothing really left to say but, for now at least, he couldn’t resist having the last word. “Happy honeymoon, Brienne.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Happy holidays!


End file.
